A Promise is a Promise
by swabloo
Summary: Jiraiya, Sakumo, Kakashi - the bond formed from a twisted blade that holds them all together, even as they hold even less onto sanity. Contains character death, course language, a bit of violence, a bucketful of blood and various mentions of Icha Icha.


**Disclaimer: **Do I look Japanese to you? I thought not!

**A/N: **for BeautifulSilverPrincess, who requested some Jiraiya/Sakumo/Kakashi interaction, somewhere along these lines.

**A Promise is a Promise**

"Shit," Sakumo managed to mutter, before falling to the ground, the hard jolt only serving to cause the blade thrust three inches deep in his stomach to rip it apart even more. He coughed – deep, raspy, and with a slight wet spray that caused him to feel faint. He coughed again, forcing himself not to vomit as his body damaged itself further whilst violently trying to eject the foreign, metal object from where it definitely didn't belong.

He heard a wet scrape, and a sudden rush of footsteps as his mission partner ran over to him, dropping to his knees and holding his hand with desperation.

"Damnit! Stay with me, Sakumo!"

Somehow, he managed to turn his head to face his friend. Embarrassingly, he coughed blood on the other man's trousers, staining them a dark brown.

"Shit, the bastard got your lung! Don't – don't worry, Tsunade will fix you up, yeah…"

Sakumo grasped the other man's hand tighter. "L-listen… I'm not – not gonna-"

"Don't say that!"

"Just… Just promise me you'll-" he coughed again, more brutally. "-Look after Ka- Kakashi-kun, yeah?"

"Hatake, that sounds an awful lot like a last request."

"Th- that's because it _is_ one, idiot…"

"Don't you _dare_ let go, you hear me, Sakumo?"

"L- loud and clear, Jiraiya." The coughs that racked his body were quickly becoming worse, and his grip was weakening.

"Just – just promise me-"

"Yeah, yeah!" Jiraiya hurriedly agreed, "I'll look after your brat, but nothing's going to happen, because you're not going to give up!"

Sakumo smirked, languidly, blood trickling from the corner of his lips. "Heh, it might be a little – a little too late, this time."

He coughed again, and this time he didn't stop.

oOoOoOo

Jiraiya sighed, tipping his head back as he gulped down a shot of sake, gazing up at the wide expanse of stars, glinting in and out of focus. He frowned, and let his head loll to the side, to stare at his silver-haired friend.

Sakumo, ever since the mission that had almost killed him, had been acting very strange – of course, he'd been acting strange to begin with, ever since _that_ mission. He was just… more distant now, and moved with a strange clarity.

At the moment, he wasn't moving much at all, lounging in a deck chair and staring up at the night sky in such a way that sent chills down the sennin's spine as he idly stroked the scar that marked where he had been stabbed.

It was happening again; he had seen him do it before – staring off into space with a dead look in his eyes, almost absently tracing the scar.

The white Fang slowly turned his head, staring into Jiraiya's eyes intensely.

"What-?" Jiraiya began, before being cut off by a delighted squeal.

"Father!" A young, six-year-old Kakashi had clumsily stumbled into the room in his haste to see is father. "You're back!"

"Yo, Kakashi-kun." Sakumo smiled sadly as the shock of white hair snuggled into his chest. "Did you learn anything in the academy today?"

"Yeah, but it was all really boring – you showed me how to hold a kunai aaages ago. They're all idiots!"

Sakumo raised an eyebrow, a smirk on his face. "Oh? Why so harsh, Kakashi-kun?"

The boy grumbled. "No reason – they're just idiots!"

Surprisingly, his father let out a deep, rumbling laugh. "The girls tried to put your hair up again, didn't they?"

Kakashi scrunched his face into a cute, chubby frown. "They're all idiots. Girls are really weird."

Jiraiya chuckled. "You think girls are weird, huh? Is that all?"

Kakashi blinked, looking at the spiky white haired man in confusion. "Yeah. They like flowers and pink stuff. What's not weird about that?"

The Sennin smirked. "Well, when you grow up-"

Sakumo interrupted with an overexagerated clearing of his throat. "We'll have none of that, Jiraiya. Don't you go _contaminating _his mind so early." He turned back to the boy. "Go on, I'm sure you've got homework to do, Kakashi."

The child sighed, but obediently got off his father's lap and left the room. In his wake, there was a few minutes of silence.

"You know," Jiraiya spoke, lips twitching into a grin, "Recently, I might have finished writing a certain book…"

Sakumo turned his head slowly to stare at his friend. "No shit? You actually finished something?" His face split into a wide grin.

"You're darn right I did! And you're going to be the first with a copy, too. I'll send it to you next week, when I get the printed version back."

Sakumo seemed to falter slightly, before forcing his face into another grin. "That's great, Jiraiya. I can't wait. What did you call that hideous thing again?"

Jiraiya frowned with good humour, although slightly worried at his friend's behaviour. "Psh! You're just jealous that I didn't name it after you."

"I've seen your prototype. Jiraiya, you made the book _orange._ Bright, luminescent orange."

"I know! Isn't it awesome?"

Sakumo leaned back and smiled dreamily again, looking up at the stars once more. "Yeah, it sure is. It'll catch a lot of attention."

That was the last coherent conversation that Jiraiya managed to pry from the other man that night. And when he left with the sun peeping with bloody red and blinding yellow, Jiraiya could not stop a deep sense of foreboding as it sunk deep into his bones.

oOoOoOo

He should've known, should've – _damnit,_ he should have stopped him! Tied him up, sent him to a psycho ward –

Anything would have been better than standing here, awkwardly, with the cold hard young child of his late friend, standing there and looking straight at him with no emotion on his face.

Why? Why did Sakumo do something so stupid as to… as to…

Kami damn-it all!

Kakashi spoke, startling him out of his thoughts. "Was there something you wanted, Jiraiya-san?" His voice was as cold as his eyes, but the sound of it no longer filled with childish happiness stung Jiraiya deeply.

"I…" He shook his head, collecting himself. "I wanted to see if you were okay."

The young boy frowned. "_I _am perfectly fine."

"Don't do that, Kakashi. Your dad… he-"

"Is gone now! I know that, and so does everyone else! He's a… he's a fool, that's what!"

Jiraiya was stunned. "Kakashi, how can you say that about your own father?"

"Well, he is! He – he disregarded the rules before, and… and… I-it was his own fault, r-really…" Kakashi's eyes gleamed with unshed tears. "He's the reason we're at w-war a-and-"

He was affectively stopped as the older man bent down and hugged him close.

"Don't listen to what other people say, Kakashi! They don't know what they're talking about. You're father was a brave and honourable man, no matter that he committed suicide."

At the mention of the word, Kakashi trembled slightly.

"Listen, kid… You know what your dad said to me, in the last mission he did?"

It wasn't a question. Kakashi shook his head anyway.

"He said to me… as he thought he was dying, and covered in blood… He asked me to take care of you." Silence met his statement.

"I – I know that he meant it in case he didn't survive that mission but… well, I'm still here, and I promised him. I'm here if you ever need me, for anything at all, you know?"

Kakashi didn't answer him, but his grip tightened ever so slightly. Jiraiya leaned back to get a good look at the boy's face, forehead creased with the sorrows that shouldn't be known to one so young.

"Hey, kid… You ever hear of 'Icha Icha'?"

**A/N:** You don't know how amused I was when Word tried to change "Sennin's" into semen.


End file.
